Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

No surprises in the rail review

I'd completely lost track of the fact that Alistair Darling's rail review was reporting today, and the results are not too surprising and, in some ways, quite sensible.

The big standout thing is (apart from the abolition of the Strategic Rail Authority, which was kind of inevitable) the hugely increased role of Network Rail, which with its new responsibilities could now be renamed British Rail without too much worry. Most realists would never have considered renationalisation to be seriously on the cards, but what has been delivered brings a lot of things which were formerly disparate and buck-passy back into central control. The train operators are effectively reduced to the status of just getting on with operating the trains and stations, with Network Rail taking operational control of a lot of areas through a series of new integrated regional control centres. This is a good thing.

Network Rail now gains responsibility for timetabling, enforcing punctuality and what's euphemistially termed service recovery - in other words, putting things back together when the service goes pear-shaped. What this means in practice is, I hope, that the current absurd situation where one company's local train usually isn't allowed to be looped for another company's Inter-City express to overtake it will become a thing of the past, improving punctuality all around and putting service regulation back where it belongs - in the hands of the signallers whose skill is a fundamental part of running a solid train service.

The one big surprise for me is the Mayor of London (through Transport for London) being given extra control over services within Greater London and possibly slightly outside the boundaries as well. Reading the lengthy white paper drops a few hints about ways in which this could be useful - at the moment, many railway stations within Greater London have ticket barriers which accept Oyster cards, but Oyster Pre-Pay can't be used. Moreover, Underground-issued Travelcard extension tickets don't work on National Rail - in fact, there's no such thing as a zonal extension on National Rail - which is a real pain as someone with a Zones 1-4 Travelcard wishing to go to Surbiton has to queue up at the Waterloo ticket office to buy a Boundary Zone 4 -> Surbiton single. This is a real waste of time for all involved, and if the greater involvement of TfL can get rid of this, it's all good.

It's a nicely optimistic document, well worth a look if you're at all interested in what happens to our railways. Of course, if you're one of those people who'd rather just sit around and talk authoritatively about How Much Better Things Are Elsewhere, stick to the Daily Mail.

Posted by mpk at July 15, 2004 6:23 PM | TrackBack